PeterRS

I used to visit Chiang Mai regularly over many, many years and loved those trips. More recently, having seen the sights many times, been to Doi Inthanon to see the waterfalls, visited the orchid farms and ridden on elephants, I find the nights quite boring. I found the Night Bazaar bars dead! (That's really a misnomer as there are no longer any bars actually in the Night Bazaar whereas there used to be around 6 - even those behind the D2 hotel have vanished - as @musgrave points out there are a few on Soi 6 on the other side of the main road). Doing a bar hop on Soi 6, they had a few customers who seemed to be long time expats and a handful of not particularly attractive boys either playing pool or glued to their phones. So many of the good and fun bars have closed - many before covid. If you have not enjoyed the old town and the scenery, Chiang Mai is certainly worth a visit. As a gay venue, keep your expectations low. Adam's Apple with the boys in shorts and shirt tops? This used to be such an exciting bar with nudity. Alas for progress!

And when my phone gets lost? I can't imagine the hassle required to reinstate banking details.

Isn't there a major problem when dividing up the actual number of posters on a site like the excellent Gay Thailand compared to those who post on the vast numbers of other chat sites around the world? Gay Thailand has a reasonably high number of active members and a lot of guests who merely read the posts. But when we compare all these with the total number of gay men around the world who travel for their vacations, these numbers are in fact tiny - virtually infinitesimal. What I assume we have to remember is that the merging of Gay Thailand with Gay Latin America (or whatever that site was called) was the joining together of two sites aimed at this tiny fraction of the gay travel market. Although I do not know, my guess is that there are several (dozens?) other sites out there focusing on Latin America that we know nothing about. Same but probably to a lesser extent about Thailand. I know of the Thailand travel section in a Singapore site. Do we know of any in Chinese based in Hong Kong and Taiwan? I assume so but I do not read them. So comparisons based merely on viewership of this site are in my view all but meaningless. As an aside, having read the Latin America threads on Gay Thailand, during my two visits to South America, I wish I had expored the gay scene as I now wish I had. If I had the time and much more importantly the finance, as a result I would gladly hop on a plane tomorrow. But I cast my lot with S. E. Asia decades ago and am delighted I did. For that reason I am more interested in chat rooms with a focus on S. E. Asia. Perhaps one day I will explore more sites in English with their focus much more on Latin America.

If by that you mean the Germans did not produce a bomb even though they had a major head start, then of course you are correct. But the reasoning is not. As Einstein stated, even after the Jewish scientists had left, Germany still had many excellent scientists perfectly capable of getting together to build a bomb. He was paticularly praiseworthy of Werner Heisenberg. Germany had created nuclear fission back in December 1938. These were just two of the reasons why Einstein wrote his warning letter to Roosevelt. Why Germany did not in fact build a bomb was much more complex. Part lies in the fact that whereas the USA had up to 150,000 scientists all working together in virtual secrecy at Los Alamos and a total cost of US$2 biillion, Hitler and the Nazis preferred to have three groups each working separately. Even so, Germany was still ahead in the 'race' when the USA set up Los Alamos. After the Nazi error which set their project back, it was still believed that uranium in heavy water would create suffficient plutonium for a bomb. That is why the 1943 British commando raid in Norway was essential in denying the Nazis stocks of that vital ingredient. By then, though, enough of the scientists working on a Nazi bomb realised that their efforts would be in vain, if only because Germany did not have the long rang delivery vehicles to make it effective other than over London. Then by that stage Germany was involved in total war with Europe and the US hitting them from the west and the Soviets from the east. The German scientists realised that even if they managed to construct a working bomb, it would not be ready in time to affect the outcome of the war. Some even feared a bomb getting into the hand of the Soviets. So the programme to construct a bomb was effectively wound down After reviwing a great deal of relevant material, the reaearchers Timothy Koech and Miriam Hiebert concluded in an article in Physics Today reprinted in the Wall Street Journal in 2019 that the Nazis came much closer to building a bomb than earlier thought. “If the Germans had pooled rather than divided their resources,” Koeth and Hiebert write, “they would have been significantly closer to creating a working reactor before the end of the war.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/how-nazi-germany-got-a-lot-closer-to-building-a-nuclear-weapon-in-wwii/2019/05/10/3181c168-71b2-11e9-8be0-ca575670e91c_story.html

He did indeed make a mistake. A stupid one because Malaysia has previously banned openly gay musicians. In 2013 Elton John's concert outside KL was abandoned just before it was due to start because of Muslim clerics' stance against Elton promoting "immoral values". That the lead singer of 1975 was not aware of this is perhaps understandable. But the promoter in Kuala Lumpur must certainly have been aware of it. He would also have known of 1975's promotion of an LGBT lifestyle. Elton's cancellation was suprising because he had given a successful concert in KL the previous year without incident. A mark, perhaps, of the growing influence of bigotted Muslim clerics. But Healy and his band have since seen a major backlash against them on local social media. Many local gays have complained that the main result of their appearance and banning is to make life more difficult for the local LGBT community. "In Malaysia, there are no LGBTQ+ rights, with a penalty of up to 20 years in prison for sodomy; Global Trans Rights Index ranks Malaysia as the second worst country in the world for transgender rights. And a privileged white man – the lead singer of British band the 1975 – has inadvertently made this situation worse . . . "Healy’s terrible misjudgment was to steam into this highly complex and historically fraught situation without due care, or seemingly enough research . . . one queer Malaysian producer and DJ has argued to me in recent days that “careless displays of ‘activism’, in the form of a conceited performance, damage the work of grassroots activists”. Another queer Malaysian has told me that Healy’s behaviour will make rightwing politicians “more paranoid”, and give them more ammo to further anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-music narratives. The fear is that queer artists will find it harder to secure spaces for their events. "Healy is protected by his status – he can return to the UK, where will face nothing more than a travel ban or slap on the wrist. He flies into a country [Malaysia], makes a clumsy provocation, leaves damage in his wake – then posts memes poking fun at the cancellation and at Malaysia from behind the safety of his phone screen." https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jul/26/the-1975s-matty-healy-has-hurt-malaysias-queer-community-not-uplifted-it

We have known for years that this is the general pattern for youg gay Asians. They tend to come in groups, look for sex in saunas or massage spas and then pop into the gogo bars for the shows. A few will pay the off fees and take out a gogo boy. But given the potential size of the Asian gay market, that "few" is tiny. In the 'old' days, many if not most of the older western guys always took off boys for a short or long time. I know I did. Now the Asian women may end up being a larger market than the guys! The sad thing is that the bar owners do virtually nothing to attract the younger Asian patrons. They are all set in their ways and as patronage falls they resort to the only way they know - raise prices!

I don't know any of the 3 star hotels that have what I would call a good breakfast. These hotels mostly cater for Taiwanese and so best to look at a good western chain hotel. But I know none near Ximending. @a447 recommends the Westgate. Just looking at the photos of the dining area, it seems quite small and I suspect - and I hope @a447 will correct me if I am wrong - that the breakfast will not be similar to a tradional western breakfast, even though it has an egg station. Wth comfort and a hearty breakfast as essentials, I would certainly give up the idea of staying in Ximending and recommend the Courtyard Downtown Hotel. You will absolutely adore the breakfast!!

Sorry to add that I find Hua Hin incredibly boring!! I stayed for a week at the Hilton hotel which I really disliked - and I like most hotels I visit. Sadly the Hilton had been recommended by a good friend and I had prepaid for the week but I'll never return. Even the beach by the hotel is tiny! Is there anything really to see in Hua Hin apart from the railway station and the Centara Grand Hotel which used to be the old railway hotel? When are you in Thailand? If in late December, Hua Hin can be quite chilly if the winter monsoon is blowing. If you are here in early August, I would definitely get to Ubon Ratchathanee for the Candle Festival Parade on August 3. It's a stunning unique event with all the temples having artisans spend a month carving wax scenes on top of lorries and trucks. Unfortunately you have missed the amazing Dansai Ghost Festival which was in June this year. I had a fabulous time there a few years ago. Sorry again I have little positive to add.

Sorry, not quite correct. The Nazi's "Manhattan Project" actually started 5 months before the USA was even aware of it. The USA only awoke to the Nazi progress on receipt of a letter to Roosevelt signed by Einstein and other emigre scientists from Europe like Enrico Fermi. They all believed that German science and industry was perfectly capable of the massive development programme necessary to build a bomb and their letter warned of the potential of nuclear weapons. Indeed, fission had been first discovered in Berlin in 1938. After initial secret meetings in April 1939, at a further meeting in September German scientists agreed to work on the various elements of what would be necessary for a nuclear bomb. By October 1940, experiments were being conducted at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institut that were at a roughly similar level to those then being conducted at Columbia University. At that time, though, the USA believed that the Germans were ahead in the race. The head of the German research programme was Werner Heisenberg whose mentor had been Niels Bohr, the Danish physicist with a mass of research into an understanding of atomic structure and quantum physics. After the Germans overran Scandinavia, Bohr initially elected to remain in Denmark even though Heisenberg had invited him to join the German atomic reesearch team. It was only in 1941 that US scientists slowly began to pull ahead of the Germans. This was largely due to a critical miscalculation in Berlin that January. It was this error that led to the only "moderator" for a bomb available to the Germans being heavy water as a means of producing weapons grade uranium. Hence the vital importance of the British commandos 1943 raid to destroy the Norwegian plant. In 1943 Bohr was warned that he was about to be arrested by the Nazis. He escaped to Sweden and was then spirited to London. He became part of the British mission sent to Los Alamos and played a major role in developing the bomb, even though he was not based at Los Alamos. Thanks to his knowledge and his regular visits, Oppenheimer regarded Bohr as a father figure to the younger scientists who played a key role in part of the bomb's development. By then, though, the Germans were far behind. As we know from the movie, it also took the US scientists several years to gather enough uranium-235 just to make the test nuclear bomb.

The fact is that, whether we like it or not, someone was going to split an atom and realise what this could mean. As the movie makes clear, the Nazis were considerably ahead in developing an atomic weapon when the US assembled its team at Los Alamos. Although not mentioned in the movie, it was a British commando raid on Nazi-occupied Norway, one of the most dramatic and dangerous missions during WWII, that destroyed the Nazi supplies of heavy water and set the German nuclear scientists back by many months. Had that raid not been successful, it is almost certain the Nazis would have had their bomb ready before they were overrun by the Soviets and the Allied forces. What might then have happened does not bear thinking other than the Nazis would have won the war. But once you have let such a cat out of its bag, you are then stuck with a set of hugely difficult moral circumstances. You canot put it back!

Also never stayed there, but if @khaolakguy wants to be within walking distance, it will be a good 20 minutes walk to Ximending.

Once a great gay destination for many years, gay Chiang Mai seems all but in its death throes.

I tried to get another vaccination prior to my trip to the UK in March. Nowhere to be found! I then came down with the virus in late April despite 4 earlier vaccinations! Not at all pleasant.

Just found a much shorter youtube cip from the original French La Cage aux Folles. It has subtitles in English which I generally prefer to dubbing.

I will look forwarrd tp watching all of that video posted by @fedssocr. In the meantime while that kiss at the start in Wellman's movie was certainly historic, it is hardly seen to be a gay kiss. Having flipped through the vdo I realise it does mention what was I believe the first true lips on lips kiss in John Schlesinger's wonderful British movie Sunday Bloody Sunday. In this the bi-sexual Murray Head plants a real gay kiss on Peter Finch who plays a gay doctor, even though he was known as an actor to be agresively straight. It caused only minor comment when the movie was released in 1971 - except in the USA where the movie was generally despised and several theatres refused to show it. The third party in the trio was the late quite superb actor Glenda Jackson.

Condoms certainly help but even kissing can be a way to transmit syphilis. The real problem is that an individual can be infected with it and not know it. The average time from infection to noticing (or not noticing) symptoms is 31 days but can range from 10 to 90 days. Unless treated, as this CDC advisory states - "Syphilis can spread during vaginal, anal, or oral sex . . . A single chancre marks the onset of the primary (first) stage of syphilis, but there may be multiple sores. The chancre is usually (but not always) firm, round, and painless. It appears at the location where syphilis enters the body. These painless chancres can occur in locations that make them difficult to notice (e.g., the vagina or anus). The chancre lasts 3 to 6 weeks and heals regardless of whether a person receives treatment. However, the infection will progress to the secondary stage if the person with syphilis does not receive treatment." Worryingly, the guidline also points out - "In the United States, MSM who are HIV-negative and diagnosed with P&S syphilis are more likely to get HIV in the future." It's quite normal now for those getting HIV tests also to be tested for syphillis - and I reckon with the current trends this is highly advisable. Treatment is usually three weekly injections into the upper thigh and is not expensive. https://www.cdc.gov/std/syphilis/stdfact-syphilis-detailed.htm#:~:text=Syphilis spreads from person-to,%2C anal%2C or oral sex.

Saw the movie this afternoon at the Paragon iMax Theatre. I have not included any additional words in the title of the thread because I cannot think of any. This brilliant movie says it all. Its three hours went by so quickly. Superb direction and some stunning performances. I will be really surprised if Cillian Murphy is not given the Oscar Best Actor award for his truly magnificent portrayal of the conflicted genius that was Robert Oppenheimer. Most surprising, at least to me, was Robert Downie Jnr. who gives as fine a performance as any I have seen on film in the role of the scheming, two-faced Lewis Strauss as first a member and then as Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. He too must be a shoo-in for a Best Supporting Actor nomination. This could have been a movie exclusively about the bomb and its effects not only on Japan but of a drastically changed future for the world. Instead at its core is a whole series of complicated personal relationships and how all see both their roles in assembling the bomb and the morality of their actions. The future comes later. To say more will give too much of the story away. Throughout, Murphy and Downie Jnr. are backed by some great acting from Matt Damon, Josh Hartnett, Kenneth Branagh, Emily Blunt and a host of others. A word, too, for the truly excellent and dramatic music score. It's as though throughout it subtly tells us precisely what is about to happen and how vital that event will be. The ending of the movie left us shattered, but certainly not in any manner we were expecting. Please try to see the iMax version. Director Christopher Nolan loves the iMax format and filmed the entire movie with iMax cameras. I feel the movie cannot be as powerful on smaller screens.

I generally stay at 3-star hotels like the Dandy Da'An which looks on to a large park and is just 30 meters from a subway station. Note, though, that like some hotels it has a few rooms with no windows! Pay more for a view of the park. Or The Ambience, although it requires a longish walk to the two nearest subway stations. There I like their Elite rooms which are at the back. Don't expect much from their breakfasts, though - certainly they are very basic compared to Le Meridien in Bangkok! On my visit at the end of this week, I got a great low rate at the Landis Hotel which is 5 star. It started life as The Ritz and was the only 5 star hotel until around 1990. I like it as it has an art deco theme. Great breakfast, but pricey! Normally I would not be able to stay there due to room prices. As I am in the Marriott Bonvoy points scheme, I have stayed at the mid-price Courtyard Downtown hotel which I much enjoyed. Excellent rooms and a fantastic buffet breakfast. It also requires a bit of a walk to the subway. Not far away is the large 5-star Grand Formosa Regent. Big rooms and excellent service. I don't think you have to stay in the Ximending area. Although the subway stops before midnight taxis are plentiful and relatively cheap. Only if it is raining hard or during a typhoon will they be difficult to get. On the other hand I am told Uber has a good service in the city. Besides, i can't recall any 5-star hotels in that area. One subway stop away is the main rail station. Here there is the Caesar Park hotel which used to be the Hilton. It's an older 4-star hotel which personally I do not like. Not far away is another older hotel, the Sheraton Grande. Never stayed there and I believe it is quite a walk to a subway station.

Finding information certainly seems more difficult than it was a few years ago. There used to be the section of a website titled AVERT which did publish statistics, although I believe it covered a more general msm percentage. I can no longer find it. A Paper issued by Australia's CSIRO in the Sexual Health section headed The Continued HIV Epidemic among men who have sex with men and transgender women in the ASEAN region: Implications for HIV policy and service programming, states re Thailand - "HIV incidence among MSM under IBBS (integrated behavioural and biological surveillance) decreased only in Bangkok from 28.6% in 2014 to 10.3% in 2018." https://www.publish.csiro.au/sh/Fulltext/sh20134 This is clearly illustrated in a graph showing the rate of increase/decrease in 7 major Asian cities. If the chart is accurate, the rate of HIV among msm has decreased substantially. A major concern arising from the chart, though, is clearly the significantly rising rate in Kuala Lumpur and Ho Chi Minh. There have been several other reports including data from 2014, but they require a great deal of time to analyse exactly what they mean since all seem based on different modelling methods and results which are extremely difficult to compare. Worrying, though, there is one paper dated July 16 2021 in Britain's highly respected medical journal The Lancet regarding an 18-month Study which suggests that "MSM will represent over half of all new HIV infections by 2025." This figure refers only to Bangkok. All reports I have looked at indicate a rise in the number of syphilis cases in Bangkok. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(21)00313-8/fulltext

I doubt if I would fall for such a scam, but you never know. I seem to be one of the few who refuse to do banking on my phone.

No idea about massage but happy to confirm @floridarob's enthusiasm for Destination. Great gay club with lots of handsome, mostly tall and slim gay Chinese guys at the weekend. Cannot speak for mid week. Perhaps surprisingly, Destination has a float at the annual Taipei Gay Pride Parades.

No. It is on Suan Phlu. Senso is still on Soi Saladaeng

Please be careful. Le Siam is a lovely 3 star hotel on Soi Convent. The Siam is a hugely expensive ultra luxury hotel on the river up from the Royal Palace complex.

It is almost 2 decades since I spent 4 nights in Luang Prabang - and loved them. It is a completely charming small city but never felt like a city. I flew in on Bangkok Airways. I understand there is a long boat service down the Mekong from Chiang Mai, but that would need to be checked to see if it still runs. Just meandering through the centre with its plethora of small temples and colonial houses was a joy. As was the gentle climb up Pussy Hill (although it is spelled Phousi!) to get an overview of the city. The former Royal Palace is now a Museum. And there is a lovely boat ride about 25 kms up the Mekong to the Pak Ou Caves where there are many hundreds of small Buddha sculptures. I had booked through the long dead Utopia Tours. I had a non-gay guide during two days but frankly a guidebook would have been just as good. One evening I had a gay guide. Funnily, that evening I had had an early dinner in a little restaurant around the corner from my guesthouse and spent the meal lusting after the two cute waiters. I was then amazed when my evening guide arrived. He was one of the waiters! Gay nightlife then was mostly limited to one very large bar cum disco with very few people and one smaller bar, again with few patrons. But I did get a feeling of Luang Prabang being quite cruisy. On my last afternoon before my flight back to Bangkok, I was sitting at one of the tables outside the guesthouse looking at the boat traffic on the Mekong. Soon three cute boys - not sure if they were in the last year at school or first at university but they were in uniform - came and sat nearby. As they were drinking their tea, they obviously were aware that I was looking at them. Soon one came over. He said one of his friends liked me and asked if I lliked him! Of course I did and told him so, but sadly I had absolutely no time to do anything. Bummer! One anecdote. The guesthouse on the banks of the Mekong was quite new. It was the idea of a Lao architect who had spent about 20 years in Sydney stuying and working before returning home. As I returned from sightseeing one afternoon, he told me I had just missed meeting Mick Jagger and his daughter and how he had had a fascinating chat with them. Another bummer! The Rolling Stones had had a concert in Bangkok cancelled when the plane taking all their stage and technical gear from the previous gig in Mumbai had broken down. So Jagger had hired a plane specifically to visit Luang Prabang. Since he was sitting on a table across from the guesthouse, the owner went up to say how nice it was to see him again. It turned out that the guesthouse owner had met Jagger during a concert in Sydney some years earlier. Then he formed part of the security guard. At a rehearsal, seeing that he was Asian Jagger had gone up to him to say the band had run out of pot and was there any way the Lao guy could obtain some more! It turned out that the owner had a friend in the Lao Embassy. So overnight, a stash of pot was sent down in the diplomatic bag!

I stayed at Le Meridien early last year when returnees still had to have covid testing and spend one night in an approved hotel. It's a lovely hotel and the breakfast was great. It permits guests in the rooms without any fuss. A 5-8 minute walk takes you to the Skytrain station at Saladaeng or the Samyan MRT (subway) station. These easily get you to many parts of the city. But it is pricier with the cheapest average room rate next month being close to US$200. I only stayed once at the Crowne Plaza in its previous incarnation as the Pan Pacific. I found it a little offputting having to exit the first lift on the 23rd floor to get another to my room if I had brought company. But the reason I decided I would never stay again is that i was accused on check-out of stealing a bathrobe! Never in decades of travelling a vast number of kilometres around the world have I ever been accused of taking anything from a room. And what was so silly on this occasion was that I only had a small trolley bag which would have had difficulty stuffing into it a fluffy bathrobe along with my own clothes. Even so I was still asked to open my bag. Mind you, the management has changed long since then.